Metro moves toward “rolling” passes and $5 Day Pass

This first motion converts Metro calendar-based passes into “rolling” passes.

Current calendar-based passes are good for the specific week or month they are purchased (i.e. a monthly pass bought in May is only good during that month). The rolling pass system takes the calendar out of the equation and makes it so that duration of a pass begins upon first use (i.e. a 30-day pass bought and used on May 19th would be good through June 17th).

Rolling passes take advantage of the TAP card’s ability to track and intelligently expire fares and gives Metro riders more flexibility when it comes to pass purchases. Regular and reduced fare monthly and weekly passes would be converted to 30-day and 7-day passes, respectively. EZ transit passes are excluded due to regional fare issues. Here’s the staff report.

The second motion (here’s the staff report) reduces the price of day pass from $6 to $5 on a test basis with the goal of enticing new riders looking for transportation alternatives in light of high gas prices and a sour economy. Staff hopes that the dollar discount will make trips that involve transfers more agreeable for riders. A single ride fare on Metro is $1.50; the day pass allows for an unlimited number of rides in a day, so the fourth trip of the day would be discounted for riders.

Board members on the Executive Management & Audit Committee said these are the sort of measures that should be taken to benefit riders and visitors and to encourage more ridership. Staff was also instructed by directors to ensure that riders can purchase day passes on buses even if they don’t currently have a TAP card.

The day pass was created in 2004 with a price of $3. It was raised to $5 in 2008 and $6 in 2010.

Pending approval of the full Board at their regular meeting next week, rolling passes would go into effect on July 1 and $5 day passes would come later in the summer.

I don’t think I fully understand the Rolling Pass, but it sounds sort of like a bad deal for Employees that are enrolled in a Metro Program with their employers who use monthly bus passes. Plus, monthly passes are basic pieces of paper you just flash at the driver or the metro fare-checkers. How would one establish first use?

It would be nice if the weekly pass could be bought online. Five dollar day pass is a fair price and should entice more people to ride. This is another pass we should be able to purschase online and store them on the card. A rolling monthly and weekly pass is great for people visiting and takes all the guess work out of when to buy the pass.

Actually monthly passes are now on TAP cards not paper passes. It is a great deal if you ride metro a lot and need to get a pass but picked it up later in a month, your pass is good for 30 days instead of till the end of that month.

Hard to believe TAP is finally getting it’s act together. Basically every other transit system in the world allows for 30 day passes. Thank you Art Leahy and whomever else was responsible for making this happen

Metro , needs to get rid of the day passes and like most other cities , day passes are exactly what they say they are , day passes , they need to be valid for 24 hours not just the day , so a person gets a full 24 hours ” ie. day ” to use it , no matter when it was purchased.

Aww, look at TAP finally becoming like every other contactless transit pass in the world. Maybe in the next few decades, they’ll figure out how to provide actual incentives for people to start topping up on TAP by providing discounted fare rates for TAP riders (i.e. Boston’s CharlieCard, Seoul’s T-Money card) and extra money credits for loading up large cash values onto the card (NY MetroCard).

As Metro is planned to move toward 30-day and 7-day passes rather than the current passes for a specific week or month, the EZ Pass should definitely be expanded into week and day passes as they’ve only sold month passes for an EZ Pass